Cop Who Shot Atlanta Driver 'Had No Idea Who Was In The Vehicle,' Police Say

An Atlanta police officer “ had no idea who was in the vehicle” late last month when he fired his gun into a car and killed 22-year-old Caine Rogers.

That’s according to spokesman Sgt. Warren Pickard, who sought to distance the Atlanta Police Department from former Officer James Burns in an interview with 11Alive on Wednesday. Burns was dismissed from the department on July 1.

On the night of June 22, a security guard at an apartment complex had called police believing someone might be breaking into cars. Burns was responding that call when he fired into Rogers’ vehicle as it drove past him. Rogers was struck in the head.

Pickard said that the young man was unarmed and that the officer had no reason to think he was the supposed suspect, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“The officer simply acted in a way that we cannot support,” said Pickard. “He had no idea who was in the vehicle, he had no idea if that was the vehicle he should be concerned with, he just discharged his weapon.”

Pickard said, however, that the shooting couldn’t have been racially motivated because there was also no reason to think that Burns knew Rogers was black.

Investigators have since found no evidence that Rogers was engaged in any criminal activity the night he was killed, nor that any cars were actually broken into that night, the Journal-Constitution reports.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is reviewing the incident with the possibility of filing criminal charges.